Political Football

I’ve read through this document posted from this source several times as I’ve stumbled past it related to Bill Ayres searches…   posted – for your reading “enjoyment” … and further discussion later.  Although I don’t believe I’m by nature a conspiracy theorist of any type, I find this information troubling.

I have no clear reference on the veracity or usefulness of the information described below at this time, other than to say – more research to follow.  And since my man Rudy is discussed as a person who uncovered the economic sabotage allegedly caused by this program; I will look into that too before posting more.  All of this is too disturbing to NOT put out for your indigestion during these troubled times. -pf

The Cloward-Piven Strategy

First proposed in 1966 and named after sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called “crisis strategy” or “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one. The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare — about 8 million, at the time — probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a “massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.”

Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level.” Their article called for “cadres of aggressive organizers” to use “demonstrations to create a climate of militancy.” Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help.

Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of “a federal program of income redistribution,” in the form of a guaranteed living income for all — working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act. This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven’s article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law “entitled” them.

By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation. Regarding Wiley’s tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, “There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests – and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones.”These methods proved effective. “The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley’s wildest dreams,” writes Sol Stern in the City Journal.  ”From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city’s private economy.”As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it.

The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness. The Cloward-Piven strategy depended on surprise. Once society recovered from the initial shock, the backlash began. New York’s welfare crisis horrified America, giving rise to a reform movement which culminated in “the end of welfare as we know it” — the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which imposed time limits on federal welfare, along with strict eligibility and work requirements. Both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing of the bill as guests of President Clinton.

Most Americans to this day have never heard of Cloward and Piven. But New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to expose them in the late 1990s. As his drive for welfare reform gained momentum, Giuliani accused the militant scholars by name, citing their 1966 manifesto as evidence that they had engaged in deliberate economic sabotage. “This wasn’t an accident,” Giuliani charged in a 1997 speech. “It wasn’t an atmospheric thing, it wasn’t supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare.”Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness.

In 1982, partisans of the Cloward-Piven strategy founded a new “voting rights movement,” which purported to take up the unfinished work of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Like the organization that spear-headed this campaign, the new “voting rights” movement was led by veterans of George Wiley’s welfare rights crusade. Its flagship organizations were Project Vote and Human SERVE, both founded in 1982. Project Vote is an ACORN front group, launched by former NWRO organizer and ACORN co-founder Zach Polett. Human SERVE was founded by Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, along with a former NWRO organizer named Hulbert James.

All three of these organizations — ACORN, Project Vote and Human SERVE — set to work lobbying energetically for the so-called Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton ultimately signed in 1993. The Motor-Voter bill is largely responsible for swamping the voter rolls with “dead  wood” — invalid registrations signed in the name of deceased, ineligible or non-existent people — thus opening the door to the unprecedented  levels of voter fraud and “voter disenfranchisement” claims that followed in subsequent elections.” The new “voting rights” coalition combines mass voter registration drives — typically featuring high levels of fraud — with systematic intimidation of election officials in the form of frivolous lawsuits, unfounded charges of “racism” and “disenfranchisement,” and “direct action” (street protests, violent or otherwise). Just as they swamped America’s welfare offices in the 1960s, Cloward-Piven devotees now seek to overwhelm the nation’s understaffed and poorly policed electoral system. Their tactics set the stage for the Florida recount crisis of 2000, and have introduced a level of fear, tension and foreboding to U.S. elections heretofore encountered mainly in Third World countries.

Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros’s Open Society Institute and his ” Shadow Party,” through whose support the Cloward-Piven strategy continues to provide a blueprint for some of the Left’s most ambitious campaigns.

I’m going to be pretty busy politicking this weekend MMM has 4 events in the County.

Obama is goofy.  On the Ayers connection he’s gone from:

1)  he lives in the neighborhood

2)  he’s NOT a neighbor

3)  Just because we were on a board together doesn’t mean we talk

4)  our kids went to the same school (?#?!!?)

5) I didn’t know about his past (how stupid does THAT sound)

6) I didn’t know he wasn’t “rehabilitated” (what does THAT mean)

7)  ???

Actually, the more ugly info about Obama can be found on the PUMA08 website where all the disaffected Clinton voters reside.  They appear committed to voting for McCain Palin – in what numbers – who knows.  “Party Unity My A$$”

I won’t be around much this weekend unless something big breaks but let me leave you with these thoughts from LittleGreenFootballs — (g’night)

Obama’s Disingenuous Statement on William Ayers

Politics | Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 11:49:46 am PST

Barack Obama’s latest statement on his association with former Weather Underground is a perfect example of his slippery rhetoric: Obama: McCain Scoring ‘Cheap Political Points’.

“Why don’t we just clear it up right now,” Obama told ABC News’ Charlie Gibson in an exclusive interview for World News. “I’ll repeat again what I’ve said many times. This is a guy who engaged in some despicable acts 40 years ago when I was eight years old. By the time I met him, 10 or 15 years ago, he was a college professor of education at the University of Illinois . . . And the notion that somehow he has been involved in my campaign, that he is an adviser of mine, that . . . I’ve ‘palled around with a terrorist’, all these statements are made simply to try to score cheap political points.”

Notice: in Obama’s “clarification,” the only things he denies are accusations that no one has made. No one has claimed that William Ayers is involved in his current campaign (although Obama did get his political start at an event held in Ayers’ living room), and no one has claimed that Ayers is an current adviser to Obama.

He’s denying straw men—but not denying any of the factual claims that have been made.

And he cleared up nothing at all. This is the same tactic he used to defend and excuse his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, until Wright’s embarrassing public statements forced Obama to renounce him.

Sweet guy…

Ayers, meanwhile, has sequestered himself and is not talking to anyone. He won’t make the same mistake Wright made, and mouth off in public—although that didn’t seem to worry him much before Obama was running for president.

The media sent teams of reporters to dig through Alaskan dumpsters to find dirt on Sarah Palin, but they’re completely uninterested in finding and interviewing William Ayers.

1977: President Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act into Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify.

The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime,investment, jobs, etc.

Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.

How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?
Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way.

1992: Republican representative Jim Leach warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stockholding few.

1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks & handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.

1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.

1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin’s Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Rubin’s Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.

1997 – 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank & Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often “no doc”, “no income”, requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of -work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990’s Fannie & Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as much as $182 Billion, most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.
Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority home ownership rates are shrinking fast.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie’s excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. “We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks,” Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and “former” Barrack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.

2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the “special status”. Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO’s who knew how to reward and punish. “We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation’s housing and mortgage markets” Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.

2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.

2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago”. Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.

2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: “We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk”. Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, “If congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole”. Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP of trying to “cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding home ownership” The bill went nowhere.

2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in ‘07, sub prime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was 15 years in the making.

2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Bush urged reform 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats’ talking points about this being a “Republican” disaster.

A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That’s why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion.

I don’t know much about guns – but I do know this:

VP candidate 2008

Correct

VP Candidate 1992

Uh…. no.

AIG bad = congress good?

Lots of rumors in the wind of issues that may pop tomorrow or soon…

could it be…

“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

another blog with good video and links HERE.

… Or more knowledge of what Rezko is talking about (Chicago politics)  or the illegal overseas campaign contributions, or Obama’s engagement in the New Party” Socialist Democrats of America or the Odinga challenge in Kenya.

A promise?  (scary talk)  seems like it matches the Odinga challenge above?

Link

Prosecutors move to delay Rezko sentencing

By MIKE ROBINSON

CHICAGO (AP) — Federal prosecutors moved Monday to delay indefinitely the sentencing of convicted fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko, sending their strongest hint yet that he is ready to spill his political secrets.

The filing asks for a postponement while prosecutors and defense attorneys “engage in discussions that could affect their sentencing postures.”

Speculation has simmered for weeks that the key fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Sen. Barack Obama was whispering what he knows about corruption in Illinois government to federal prosecutors in hopes of getting a lighter sentence.

read more by taking the link above

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Plus more bad news for Barry

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Barack Obama & Raila Odinga

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So, which of these things did you NOT think would happen when you woke up this morning:

A) The markets would plummet 700+ points.

B) CNN would call Bill Ayers a terrorist.

Me too.

============= 

Link to AP smear

But while Ayers and Obama are acquainted, the charge that they “pal around” is a stretch of any reading of the public record. And it’s simply wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts. Obama was 8 years old at the time the Weather Underground claimed credit for numerous bombings and was blamed for a pipe bomb that killed a San Francisco policeman.

HUH?  That’s NOT what Palin is saying. This writer is an idiot.

A comment from LGF blog:

I wonder what the time limit is?

Osama bin Hidin hasn’t committed a terrorist attack on American soil for more than 7 years. Does he only have 25 years so to go before prospective Presidents can pal around with him?

Ayers went from being an unsuccessful terrorist to using his family’s wealth to warp the minds of youth. He’s FAR more dangerous now than he was then.

http://powerlineblog.com

powerline blog is always on top of events and below they lay out their opinion of an AP article today covering Palin’s statements about Bill Ayers yesterday.

Let’s learn more about Bill Ayers, then read what powerline has to say about AP’s analysis. Below – a quote from Hillary last Spring:

The Ayers-Obama relationship became a hot topic in Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate. It is “an issue certainly Republicans will be raising” should Obama be the Democratic nominee for president, Obama rival Hillary Clinton said.  LlNK

HERE – he says he is sorry, but wasn’t a terrorist – you decide; I have.  It’s a slippery slope to say it’s great, fine should not be talked about, when a fellow running for the leader of the free world (can we still say that?) thinks we can only take selective life events to judge character.

This only seems to me that Ayers is altering his history as Obama is trying to hide his.  What’s there Barry?

The quote from Hillary above tells me there is a relationship.  He is a neighbor, he’s not a neighbor, whatever – you can google all kinds of answers to that question… But what we know is that he was a fugitive from justice, an anti-war protester – but no – he also formed a group that bombed state and federal buildings and hurt and killed Americans.  hmm…   sounds like the definition of a terrorist to me.  You?

Then, my biggest problem is Ayres seems to wear that terrorist activity as a badge of honor by saying he should have done more not less, and allowing to be photographed standing on an American flag in 2001.   No amount of collegiate or business contribution would allow me to sit on a board or associate with Bill Ayers or his wife (better known as) Bernardine Dohrn.

Obama et al cannot dismiss this as racism nor can they keep from explaining this relationship.  But – if McCain Palin can get no traction from the MSM or the public we could be doomed in this election to a very far left Democrat with a veto proof congress.  We’ll be starting to look more like France every day…  sigh…

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The Associated Press claims that Sarah Palin’s criticism of Barack Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers was racist!

The AP’s article is an “analysis” by one Douglass K. Daniel, described as “a writer and editor with the Washington bureau of The Associated Press.” It has to be read to be believed:

Link to full AP article

When the McCain campaign ran an ad that had a white woman in it, it was denounced as racist. When it ran an ad that had an African-American man (Franklin Raines) in it, it was denounced as racist. Now the McCain campaign links Obama to a white man, the former terrorist, and still anti-American, Bill Ayers. That’s racist too. I think we’ve exhausted just about all the possibilities. The only non-racist thing McCain can do, apparently, is concede the election.

There once was a time when the Associated Press was a respected news-gathering agency. Some years ago, it began to abandon that mission in order to transform itself into a liberal advocacy organization. That transformation is now pretty much complete.

2008 will be remembered, I think, as the year in which the collapse of traditional American media became irreversible. The AP has plenty of company.

surprising and some strange news today

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First Alec Baldwin blames Clinton and Democrats (Barney Frank) for economic problems.  Yes A L E C  Baldwin.

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OJ has been saved from the stress of continuing to look for Nicole’s murderer, as he will soon have a new home – finally. Never thought this day would arrive.

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Head of LA chapter of NOW  is rumored to endorse McCain/Palin

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from the AP (!) (on Palin’s statements about the Obama / Ayres relationship)

In 1970, the group was blamed for a pipe bomb in San Francisco that killed a police officer and injured another. Three members of the group were killed in 1970 in an accidental explosion of a bomb in their Greenwich Village basement.

but then the story devolves is a complete hit piece on Palin – but what else is new…  read more here

but McCain/Palin feel this is the problem: Ayres says:  ”I don’t regret setting bombs,” Ayres told the New York Times in 2001 upon publication of his memoir about that era, “Fugitive Days.” ”I feel we didn’t do enough.”

uh huh… sweet.

Mr. Ayres in 2001 (standing on the American Flag)

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from the NY TIMES (!)

  …  Whenever competitors asked Congress to rein in the company, lawmakers were besieged with letters and phone calls from angry constituents, some orchestrated by Fannie itself. One automated phone call warned voters: “Your congressman is trying to make mortgages more expensive. Ask him why he opposes the American dream of home ownership.”    ….

Regulators, spurred by the revelation of a wide-ranging accounting fraud at Freddie, began scrutinizing Fannie’s books. In 2004 they accused Fannie of fraudulently concealing expenses to make its profits look bigger.

Mr. Howard and Mr. Raines resigned. Mr. Mudd was quickly promoted to the top spot…

Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, leaned on Fannie and Freddie to buy and hold those troubled debts, hoping that removing them from the system would help the economy recover. The companies, eager to regain market share and buy what they thought were undervalued loans, rushed to comply.   ….

Mr. Raines and Mr. Howard, who kept most of their millions, are living well.   Mr. Raines has improved his golf game. Mr. Howard divides his time between large homes outside Washington and Cancun, Mexico, where his staff is learning how to cook American meals.

Link to entire article  (BTW Mudd is broadcaster Roger Mudd’s son)

I’d make this the quote of the week, except it was from 2003:

“I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing…”  -Barney Frank September 25, 2003

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video – How did this happen?

Link – LGF – “Biden Lies ignored by the Media

Link - “nothing to say”  [hat tip libragirl who is apparently tired of posting herself...]

this is hysterical – from http://realclearpolitics.com all you really need to know.   when the nyt says the debate proves little – you KNOW Gov. Palin did well.

I’ll just post links to good notes about the debate below – later – got to get to work.

Binden on the constitution

Townhall report

cnn.com

Weekly Standard

Wall Street Journal (Peggy Noonan finally caves

New York Times (David Brooks)

update -here is another article (take the links too) that notes more factual errors from Biden.

Biden’s 14 Lies

Fresh from the McCain people.

JOE BIDEN’S 14 LIES TONIGHT

1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.

2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.

3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”

4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.

5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.

6. ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.

7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people’s health insurance coverage — they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false

8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska — she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it’s not a windfall profits tax.

9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.

10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation — he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.

11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.

12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.

13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”

14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won’t pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.

I needed this.
you will recognize this set of events and actions in the parody below as something that BIDEN did or said, not Palin.  0bama has had his gaffes too.  just google Obama Gaffes – I’m too tired tonight…

BTW – I am not watching the debate – need to work, but will be watching the blogs http://littlegreenfootballs.com probably.

October 02, 2008, 6:30 a.m. 

Sarah Biden
Vice-Presidential meltdown.

By Victor Davis Hanson 

Journalists continue to ask, “What was John McCain thinking in selecting the gaffe-prone Gov. Sarah Palin?”

In what has now become a disturbing pattern, the Alaska governor seems either unable or unwilling to avoid embarrassing statements that are often as untrue as they are outrageous. Recently, for example, in an exclusive interview with news anchor Katie Couric, Palin gushed, “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’ ” Apparently the former Alaskan beauty queen failed to realize that in 1929 there was neither widespread television nor was Franklin Roosevelt even President.

Sometimes the Idaho-native Palin seems to confuse and embarrass her own running mate. Shortly after her nomination, she introduced a “John McAmerica;” then she referred to the Republican ticket as the “Palin-McCain administration;” and finished by calling Sen. Obama, “Senator George Obama.” The Palin gaffes seem to be endless: on her way to Washington to meet the national press corps, Palin, the mother of five, once again stumbled — this time characterizing Senator Biden as “Congressman Joe Biden,” who, she chuckled, was “good looking.”

But then Palin only compounded that growing image of shallowness when introducing her own snow-mobiling husband Todd, “as drop-dead gorgeous!” And when asked about the controversial McCain ad suggesting that Barack Obama had introduced explicit sex education classes to pre-teenagers, the Christian fundamentalist Palin scoffed that it was “terrible” and that she would have never had allowed such an unfair clip to run — before retracting that apology under pressure from the now exasperated McCain campaign staff. But then, according to press reports, wild Sarah only made things worse still by announcing that paying higher taxes was the “patriotic” thing for Americans to do.

This week, the gun-owning, moose-hunting Palin also promised blue-collar Virginians that she would protect their firearm rights — even, if need be, from her own running-mate: “I guarantee you, John McCain ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey. Don’t buy that malarkey. They’re going to start peddling that to you. I got two. If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem. I like that little over and under, you know? I’m not bad with it. So give me a break. Give me a break.”

Palin may have had some experience in Alaskan politics, but at times the former small-town mayor seems unaware of the pressures of running a national campaign in a diverse society. For example, Palin — who has had past associations with reactionary groups — caused a storm earlier when she characterized Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama in seemingly racialist terms: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Such stereotyping suggested that the Alaskan was not aware of the multiracial nature of American politics — an impression confirmed when in her earlier gubernatorial run, she had once suggested that to enter a donut shop was synonymous with meeting an Indian immigrant.

The recently-elected Governor Palin was further rattled by media scrutiny, when, in a moment of embarrassing candor, she confessed, “Mitt Romney is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly he might have been a better pick than me.” That confession followed an earlier deer-in-the-headlights moment, when the nearly hysterical Palin urged a wheel-chair bound state legislator to rise: “Sally, stand up, let the people see you!”

The Palin gaffes are no surprise to those who have followed closely her previous races. They cite her aborted governor campaign, when she was forced to pull out after fraudulently claiming that her working-class family had been Idaho coal miners — in an apparent case of plagiarism of British Prime Minister candidate Neal Kinnock’s stump speech. Palin once boasted: “I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Sarah Palin’s the first in his family ever to go to University . . . is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright . . . who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Idaho and would come up after 12 hours and play volleyball?” It did not help Palin that reporters quickly discovered that while as a student at the University at Idaho she had been caught plagiarizing and also misrepresented her undergraduate transcript.

Most recently on the campaign trail, Governor Palin apparently promised a vocal supporter that the United States would certainly not burn coal to produce electricity — even though roughly half of current U.S. power production is coal-fired. The same uncertainty seems to extend to foreign policy. Under cross-examination, Palin appeared confused about her own recent trips abroad, first claiming that her helicopter had “been forced down” in Afghanistan, although other passengers suggested the landing was a routine cautionary measure to avoid a possible snowstorm. Palin likewise had alleged that she was shot at while in Baghdad’s Green Zone, although there was no evidence from her security detail that she had, in fact, come under hostile fire.

The Obama campaign has lost no time in hammering at the former hockey-mom Palin’s foreign-policy judgment, alleging that shortly after September 11 she once suggested sending $200 billion to Iran as a “good will” gesture, and reminding journalists that in repeated interviews, Palin had called for dividing Iraq into three separate nations, despite Iraqi resistance to such outside interference. Palin, the nominal head of the Alaskan National Guard, has also falsely insisted that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen had once suggested that we were losing the war in Iraq and that the Bush administration had sent Undersecretary of State William Burns to Teheran to meet with Iranian officials.

In response to Palin’s unbridled misstatements, journalists have coined the term “Palinism” — the serial voicing of sweeping declarations that are either insulting, or untrue — or both. No wonder rumors mount that Sen. McCain is now seeking a possible graceful exit for the gaffe-prone Palin, even as the Obama campaign continues to make the contrast with their own sober and circumspect Joe Biden.

— This parody is by NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

video of the day

You know what? You decide if  the “progressive” label is really progressive; and if “state run” “government funded” life styles are the way you want to live. Leave me out.

People are being lead like lemmings to the sea by organizations such as this (read first article below). Think Jones Town… Kool-aide   These people think this is a GAME!

The “game” is how to extract more government support.  The “game” is to bankrupt business.  The horror is these people do not understand the end “game” is NO support because there will be NO more money.

There are thousands of years of history screaming that we are killing ourselves slowly with these new policies. Read about the demise of the Roman Empire and what brought us out of the Dark Ages… It wasn’t serfdom – it was INDEPENDENT thought and hard WORK.

If we expect government to take care of us, may God have Mercy on us. Where has our national and personal PRIDE gone??? -pf

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Democracy Alliance memo details Dem plan to “educate the idiots” and target minorities

Created 10/01/2008 – 10:49am

Face The State Staff Report

In a confidential internal memorandum obtained by Face The State (PDF), the Colorado Democracy Alliance outlines a roster of “operatives” who worked for Democratic victory in the 2006 general election. The document outlines specific tasks for various members of the state’s liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to “educate the idiots,” assigned to the state’s AFL-CIO union. Among the operation’s intended targets: “minorities, GED’s, drop-outs.”

Individuals named in the document, marked “CONFIDENTIAL,” “for internal use only,” and “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE,” are high-level elected Democrats including House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, as well as Gov. Bill Ritter‘s press aide and former campaign chief Evan Dreyer. All are specially marked as “off-the-record or covert.”

Mentioned as a “critical contact” was Dominic DelPapa, a partner at Ikon Public Affairs. DelPapa was at the center of recent controversy stemming from the February leak of a confidential memo he authored detailing a multi-million dollar “foot on throat” attack on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, among others.

CoDA is one of 18 state-based versions of the nationally focused Democracy Alliance, a self-described “investment partnership of business and philanthropic leaders” funding liberal infrastructure nationwide. For more information about the Democracy Alliance in Colorado, see day one and two of Face The State’s week-long series on the group.

In a podcast released by the DNC Host Committee Tuesday, national Democracy Alliance founder Rob Stein explains the need for large, secretive donor networks. “We do not have the infrastructure that the right has built, yet,” he said. “But there has never in the history of progressivedom (sic) been a clearer, more strategic, more focused, more disciplined, better financed group of institutions operating at the state and national level.”

In the same podcast, Laurie Hirschfeld Zeller, the newly installed executive director of CoDA, explains her organization’s mission. “Our job is to build a long-term progressive infrastructure in Colorado while we’re conceding nothing in the short term in terms of progressive goals at the ballot box.”

Zeller had high praise for the state’s liberal establishment, specifically naming America Votes, New Era Colorado, Progressive Majority, the Latina Initiative, and ProgressNow as partners in CoDA’s coalition building efforts. “CoDA works with all these organizations,” she said.

The Bell Policy Center, a liberal think tank that regularly plays host to CoDA board meetings, was praised for its work fighting to dismantle Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. She characterized Colorado’s constitutional requirement for voter approval of tax increases as “arcane.”

According to Zeller, CoDA operates “in a structure that provides privacy to members.” Under current law, this structure is as a taxable non-profit organization that allows individual donors to give anonymously to shared causes. She described the structure as a “fiscal irrigation system” designed to “provide a harvest later this fall.”

Stein, the DA founder, said state groups like CoDA have fired “a warning shot to conservatives in America.”

“Conservatives have nothing comparable to possibly compete with it, and they better watch out,” he said. Colorado was chosen as a test case for exporting DA’s national model, due in part to the “significant wealth” of liberal donors living here.

“It’s not just individual donors,” Zeller said of CoDA’s financial underwriting. “One of the things that has been crucial in making the work of the Colorado Democracy Alliance effective in Colorado has been our partnership with institutional donors and activist organizations in labor, particularly,” she said. “That’s been a major part of how we get our work done here.”

According to Zeller, CoDA’s giving is concentrated in five general funding categories: leadership development, communications, “research and ideas,” “civic engagement” and “constituency development.”

“We embrace the ‘progressive’ label in our giving and the strategic role we play in Colorado politics,” she said.

Despite sweeping gains for political liberals both in Colorado and nationally, Stein believes his coalition can do a better job of communicating with voters.

“It feels scary, because we don’t have the message down right,” he said. “[But] We’re being more businesslike – we’re being more professional.”

====================

The first thing Gov. Palin did as CEO of Alaska was to put the State check book online.-pf

Googling the GSEs
Sunlight on Freddie and Fannie.

By Mark Hemingway

There’s only one way to make sure that there is some accountability in the current financial crisis. Americans need to insist on absolute transparency.

Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s failures have forced the federal government to put both into conservatorship — costing taxpayers some $200 billion — Americans, who now own the two entities, are entitled to know what role the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) played in creating this mess.

====================

Bill Clinton has been getting a lot of press lately for trashing his own party’s handling of the mortgage mess. Last Thursday, he told Good Morning America, “I think that the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by the Republicans in Congress, or by me when I was President, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

Unfortunately, he was fibbing.

He actually set the “standards” that forced Fannie and Freddie to make bad loans. In 1999, the L.A. Times noted that “Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a 20-year old statute meant to combat ‘redlining’ by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities.”

more here

geesh….

Teachers agree to remove Obama buttons in class

Associated Press – October 1, 2008 8:34 AM ET

SOQUEL, Calif. (AP) – “Educators for Obama” buttons are no longer worn by teachers at Soquel High School.

The buttons began sprouting up at the Santa Cruz County school and parent John Hadley complained that teachers were attempting to politically influence his 16-year-old daughter and other students. Hadley is a John McCain supporter.

Teachers have now agreed not to wear the buttons in class.

Greater Santa Cruz Federation of Teachers president Barry Kirschen says the teachers were simply exercising what they believed was their right to free expression.
Information from: Santa Cruz Sentinel, http://www.santacruzsentinel.com

<<<GACK>>>

====================

Earmarks in the Bailout Bill -

- Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
- 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)
- Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/10/01/earmarks-slipped-into-700bn-bailout-bill/

 <<< you have GOT to be kidding >>>

I think this is the new Senate bill – more later.

====================

WANTED: Top executive for train-wreck bank about to be seized by federal regulators. Must be able to look busy while FDIC sells business from under you. Previous experience with angry shareholders sitting on worthless stock a plus. Perks: $7.5 million hiring bonus and $11.6 million cash severance. ====================

Soros floats alternative bailout plan with Dems
By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 09/30/08 11:19 PM [ET]

The billionaire financier George Soros, a major Democratic financial backer, is floating his own rescue plan among Democratic lawmakers who are uncertain what to do in the wake of a surprise defeat of a proposed $700 billion rescue package proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. 

Soros has outlined his plan in an opinion editorial in the Financial Times and circulated a concept paper among decision-makers.

Specifically, the liberal philanthropist has proposed that government funds should be used to recapitalize the American banking system by purchasing equity in banks and investment firms.

Democratic Rep. Jim Moran (Va.) scheduled a meeting Tuesday afternoon with Robert Johnson, a former manager of the Soros Fund Management, to discuss the proposal.

Moran compared the proposal to Warren Buffet’s $5 billion investment in the investment firm Goldman Sachs Group in return for preferred stock and warrants to buy common stock at a discount.

Soros has also contacted Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) presidential campaign to share his views on the financial crisis and the best way to solve it.

Soros described the plan he outlined in his concept paper in an opinion editorial that appeared in the Financial Times early Wednesday morning, Greenwich Meridian Time.

“Instead of purchasing troubled assets, the bulk of the funds ought to be used to recapitalize the banking system,” Soros wrote.

“The Treasury secretary would rely on bank examiners rather than delegate implementation of [the Troubled Asset Relief Program] to Wall Street firms,” he wrote in reference to the plan first crafted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. “The bank examiners would establish how much additional equity capital each bank needs in order to be properly capitalized according to existing capital requirements.”

“The recapitalized banks would be allowed to increase their leverage, so they would resume lending,” he wrote.

Soros has emerged as a harsh critic of the Treasury Department, especially of Paulson’s proposal for the government to buy $700 billion of distressed mortgage-backed securities to restore the flow of credit in the financial markets.

It is unclear whether his entry onto the debris-strewn field of the debate will help lawmakers reach agreement on an alternative proposal or further anger House Republicans, who blew up a compromise plan on the House floor Monday.  

“The two main principles are to inject more cash into the securities market and shore up home mortgages,” said Moran, who has been briefed on the proposal. “He thinks it has to be more direct than the government buying up tranches. He doesn’t think the government should be buying up toxic stock.”

“There are a lot of people with ideas, I’m going to look at what they want,” said Moran, who added that he also scheduled a meeting with Robert Dugger, managing director of Tudor Investment Corporation, a fund connected with the billionaire trader Paul Tudor Jones.

Soros, who is widely regarded as a financial wizard, could jumpstart congressional negotiations in a new direction, especially now that some strategists believe the Paulson-based plan that failed Monday will be difficult to revive.

One banking industry lobbyist said it would be very difficult politically for Republicans who voted against the package Monday to change their minds and vote for it a few days later. More than two thirds of the House Republican conference voted against the plan, which failed by a vote of 228-205.

Michael Vachon, Soros’s spokesman, said: “There have been a lot of conversations going on about the Paulson plan and George has been very critical of it.”

Democrats are fond of Soros, who has emerged as one of the party’s biggest financial backers in recent years. He spent close to $24 million to defeat President Bush in the 2004 election.

For this reason Soros is a bogeyman among many Republicans. He clashed famously with former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.).

During the 2004 election Hastert questioned the source of Soros’s wealth and suggested it could have links to the drug trade.

Soros has fiercely criticized Paulson’s proposal.

“Mr. Paulson’s proposal to purchase distressed mortgage-related securities poses a classic problem of asymmetric information,” Soros wrote in a Financial Times op-ed dated Sept. 24. “The securities are hard to value but the sellers know more about them than the buyer: in any auction process the Treasury would end up in the dregs.”

Soros would like the government to restore the flow of credit to the financial markets by purchasing equity in companies saddled with distressed assets, said Moran.

The international financier would also like the government to take direct action to shore up the ailing housing market.

“The scheme addresses only one half of the underlying problem — the lack of credit availability. It does very little to enable house owners to meet their mortgage obligations and it does not address the foreclosure problem,” Soros wrote in Wednesday’s commentary .

“A revised emergency legislation could also provide more help to homeowners,” he wrote of a package based on his own proposals. “It could require the Treasury to provide cheap financing for mortgage securities whose terms have been renegotiated, based on Treasury’s cost of borrowing.”

He has also suggested prohibiting mortgage companies from charging fees on foreclosures. Many companies are quick to foreclose because they no longer own the loan itself, which has likely been turned into a security.

Instead, these companies make money by charging delinquent borrowers during the foreclosure process.

Soros’s plan could find favor among members of the Congressional Black Caucus, many of whom voted against the Paulson-based plan Monday.

Foreclosures of subprime mortgages, considered the root of the housing crisis, affects African-American homeowners disproportionately.

Robert Shapiro, chairman of Sonecon, an economic advisory firm, who served as Commerce Department undersecretary during the Clinton administration, raised questions about Soros’s proposal.

He said that if the government bought stock in troubled firms, a problem would arise regarding how Uncle Sam would be represented as a shareholder.

“How does the government vote the shares?” he asked. “It puts them in a potential conflict of interest. Regulatory interests may hurt the bottom line.”